We draw on a resource caravans' perspective to explain pathways to career success among a longitudinal sample, covering the first 15 years of their careers. By applying a latent growth model, we investigate how the role of university grade point average (GPA) on career success changes across time. The results from latent growth curve analysis revealed that GPA was not positively related to initial levels of career success (i.e., salary and leadership level), however, GPA was positively related to increases in career success over time and positively related to subjective career success. These findings indicate that the positive impact of GPA on career success accumulates over time, in line with the resource caravans and gain spirals of conservation of resources theory. Further, we examine the joint role of GPA and affective-identity motivation to lead (MTL) measured at the start of university studies to explain growth in career success over time. As expected, affective identity MTL moderated the relationship between GPA and leadership level, salary level and subjective career success, such that the positive relationship was stronger for individuals higher on affective-identity MTL. Our findings highlight that the pathway to career success is based on gain spirals that may develop slowly over time as individuals accumulate resources in their resource caravan and invest these resources further to achieve their career outcomes. Implications for practice are discussed.

中文翻译：

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平均绩点对以后的职业成功有持久的影响吗？从青春期到职业生涯中期的资源大篷车视角


我们利用资源大篷车的观点来解释纵向样本中通往职业成功的途径，涵盖他们职业生涯的前 15 年。通过应用潜在增长模型，我们研究了大学平均绩点 （GPA） 对职业成功的作用如何随时间变化。潜在增长曲线分析的结果表明，GPA 与职业成功的初始水平（即工资和领导水平）呈正相关，但是，GPA 与随着时间的推移职业成功的增加呈正相关，与主观职业成功呈正相关。这些发现表明，GPA 对职业成功的积极影响会随着时间的推移而积累，这与资源保护理论的资源大篷车和收益螺旋一致。此外，我们研究了 GPA 和情感认同领导动机 （MTL） 的共同作用，在大学学习开始时测量，以解释职业成功随着时间的推移而增长。正如预期的那样，情感认同 MTL 调节了 GPA 与领导水平、薪资水平和主观职业成功之间的关系，因此情感认同 MTL 较高的个体的正向关系更强。我们的研究结果强调，通往职业成功的道路是基于收益螺旋，随着个人在他们的资源大篷车中积累资源并进一步投资这些资源以实现他们的职业成果，这种收益螺旋可能会随着时间的推移而缓慢发展。讨论了对实践的影响。